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Remembering Helen Gurley Brown: How I Met The Cosmo Girl

Helen Gurley Brown, the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan, died yesterday at the age of 90. I met her in 1989, and it was a huge disappointment.

I had recently made a career change, from law to journalism, when our paths crossed. (See “Changing Careers May Have Saved My Life.”) At that point most of my published work involved legal subjects, and I was eager to try my hand at something else. I sent Cosmo a proposal to write an article called “High-Risk Beauty: What Price for Good Looks?” It was inspired by my own decision to take Accutane, the acne wonder drug that was removed from the market in 2009 because of its many serious side effects, including birth defects.

My proposal explained my interest in the subject, and suggested that I either cover a handful of high-risk beauty treatments, or concentrate just on Accutane. Today, looking back on my query, I still think it was a terrific idea–even a bit prescient in light of subsequent events.

What a thrill it was when an editor at Cosmo responded by inviting me for an interview and escorted me in to see Helen Gurley Brown. The Cosmo Girl, by then 67, was still looking very fit, if a bit surgically altered, and stood up to greet me in a tight-fitting suit and high heels. But the first words out of her mouth were, “Your skin looks great!”

I quickly surmised that the only reason she wanted to see me was to have a look at what Accutane could do. (Brown, a New York Times obituary reported, “had rampant, intractable acne.”)

After that, she explained that all assignments for Cosmo came from “The Book.” She quickly ushered me out to peruse a 3-ring binder. It was filled with typewritten pages, each encased in its own plastic, and grimy from handling by aspiring writers like me. On each page was a headline and a description of what sounded like a Cosmo story–most dealt with how to have better sex. It seemed that Helen and her lieutenants had come up with a winning formula for the magazine, and they were sticking to it. I was too green to realize that “High-Risk Beauty” just wasn’t a fit.

Needing the work and wanting to break into Cosmo, I selected an alternate topic–“The Spoilers: Ten Sure Ways to Undermine Your Love.” I had first-hand experience with this too, having recently ended a long-term relationship. So there was a certain catharsis in reporting the story, which required me to interview a number of psychotherapists, along with other women who had recently broken up.

Still, though I healed the wounds of love lost, my relationship with Cosmo failed to satisfy. After an interlude of several months they sent a note saying my story didn’t work out any better than the relationship that inspired it. I felt rejected by Cosmo and assumed Helen Gurley Brown just didn’t appreciate serious journalism.

Therefore I was surprised to hear in January that Brown had donated $30 million to Columbia University and Stanford University to endow a journalism program. Named for Helen and her husband David, who died in 2010, it was the largest single financial gift ever received by my alma mater, Columbia Journalism School, which operates the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation in conjunction with Stanford’s school of engineering.

I thought back to our meeting and events of the months that followed. In today’s terms, Helen Gurley Brown created a successful brand selling sex and liberating single women–starting with her 1962 book, Sex and the Single Girl. But perhaps the Cosmo Girl, who had no children of her own, had the next generation in mind when she made her generous donation. Journalism is facing a serious economic threat right now. Her gift will encourage writers of the future to save it from extinction.

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I worked with art director Jerry Maestrick at Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1980s.

About 11:30 PM, when we finished a promo design I told Jerry, “I guess we’ll have to wait until the morning to get an OK from editor Helen Gurley Brown.” Jerry replied, “We can get an OK now, she usually stays to midnight every night.”

Gurley passed away without children or grandchildren because she had herself sterilized when she was young so as not to interfere with her erroneous, devastating, choice of lifestyle. She worked late nights until her last days because she had no other life.

Gurley promoted her agenda to featherbrained single women who are foolish enough to fall for her pie-in-the-sky promises of a fuller life by loads of demeaning, hedonistic sex.

Read the tragically sad case of Simone de Beauvoir and her “open” relationship with the selfish, unfeeling Jean Paul Sartre. When asked if her subjugation in her personal life was at odds with her feminist theories she said, “Well, I just don’t give a d–n … I’m sorry to disappoint all the feminists, but you can say it’s too bad so many of them live only in theory instead of in real life.”

BTW You know what men will be demanding of women in the future—simply because they know millions of women are enjoying S&M novels like Fifty Shades of Gray.

Hi Deborah: my comment was in reply to Michael’s “how sad, how tragic” lament about meeting with Helen Gurley Brown in the eighties. I don’t know why the commenting structure doesn’t make that clear. I very much appreciated your article!

I worked with art director Jerry Maestrick at Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1980s.

About 11:30 PM, when we finished a promo design I told Jerry, “I guess we’ll have to wait until the morning to get an OK from editor Helen Gurley Brown.” Jerry replied, “We can get an OK now, she usually stays past midnight every night.”

Gurley passed away without children or grandchildren because she had herself sterilized when she was young so as not to interfere with her erroneous, devastating, choice of lifestyle. As she aged she had a nose job, breast augmentation, face-lifts, eye lifts and injections of silicone and fat into her face to keep wrinkles at bay, among many other procedures. She worked late nights until her last days because she had no other life.

Gurley promoted her agenda to featherbrained single women who are foolish enough to fall for her pie-in-the-sky promises of a fuller life by loads of demeaning, hedonistic sex.

In 1970, a group of feminists led by Kate Millett staged a sit-in at Ms. Brown’s office, protesting her retrograde vision of womanhood. The bigger question is why aren’t the feral, fubsy, feminists of today boycotting the publisher and Occupy Wall Streeting them?

Read the tragically sad case of Simone de Beauvoir and her “open” relationship with the selfish, unfeeling Jean Paul Sartre. When asked if her subjugation in her personal life was at odds with her feminist theories she said, “Well, I just don’t give a d–n … I’m sorry to disappoint all the feminists, but you can say it’s too bad so many of them live only in theory instead of in real life.”

BTW You know what men will be demanding of women in the future—simply because they know millions of women are enjoying S&M novels like Fifty Shades of Gray.

A charming little insight into what must have been a complicated person. It was surprising how long her formula worked. I wonder if David Brown’s cover lines had anything to do with it. I don’t think there was anyone better at mining the sex and beauty insecurities of American women.